Cyclotron Cataracts

Physicist Dean B. Cowie, 28, was standing about two feet away from the new cyclotron at Carnegie Institution of Washington. The date was Dec. 31, 1943. Unexpectedly, the cyclotron worked on its first trial. Cowie was hit by a charge of neutrons that may have been as much as 15 million volts. In spite of three operations, he is now blind in one eye. He can barely see out of the other, but hopes it will improve after an operation.

The cyclotron, man's first atom-smasher, is apparently most dangerous when it is just starting its first magnetic merry-go-round and still needs adjusting. The deadly neutrons give no warning; there is no sensation of light, heat or pressure; the effect may not be felt for years. But the neutrons can cause cataracts much like those that sometimes form with old age. One difference is that cyclotron cataracts are on the back of the lens.

Last week the public learned that five atomic scientists have had their eyes dimmed by cyclotron cataracts. Three of the victims had been working with the University of Illinois' cyclotron. Physicist Lloyd Smith, now 26, helped install it in 1943, and he did not notice a cloudiness in one eye until 1946. When he asked a girl physicist in the laboratory to marry him, he warned her that something was happening to his eyes (she said yes). Now working at the University of California's radiation laboratory, he hopes to have the cataracts removed soon.

Dr. Gerald Krueger, in charge of the Illinois cyclotron, noticed just a month ago that he had cataracts in both eyes. His vision is blurred, but he is still able to hunt (last week he shot two rabbits). Dr. Gerhart Groetzinger, 40, now of the University of Chicago, worked on the Illinois cyclotron during the war; he noticed a cataract's dimming effects in his right eye two years ago. It seems to be clearing, and he hopes it will go away without an operation. The fifth victim is a nuclear physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Better precautions are now being taken. Dr. Shields Warren, director of the Atomic Energy Commission's Division of Biology and Medicine, thinks that the five physicists probably suffered because they were so anxious to speed up their experiments that they took short cuts.

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